Wintery Hell
by Belldere
Summary: With Sherlock being roped into spending Christmas with his family, John had his own Christmas all planned out with his other friends and family... That is until he's extended a forceful invitation from Mycroft and an assumption from Sherlock who, once again, failed to notice John wasn't in the room when he 'asked'. Probably a two shot if my brain decides to co-operate with me.
1. Chapter 1

A week before Christmas, Sherlock had grudgingly accepted his mother's eighth consecutive invitation to spend Christmas day with the family after coming home to find all the furniture in the flat had been rearranged, in an annoying but rather impressive way, to spell out 'come home Sherlock' which wouldn't have moved Sherlock at all if it hadn't been coupled with a rather alarming phone call that John conveniently had to leave in the middle of to visit Harry.

After receiving several invitations from various important people from the different stages of his life, John was all set to spend Christmas bouncing from place to place between his friends from the army, the Yard and Harry that he hadn't been able to decide between.

Since Mrs Hudson would be visiting her sister and Sherlock had been either blackmailed or guilted into visiting his family, John knew that being a Grinch and spending Christmas alone in the peace and quiet he'd long since forgotten how to enjoy, probably wouldn't be an acceptable or healthy way to spend his holidays.

So John had mapped out a game plan.

He would spend Christmas morning relaxing then head to Harry's before she got the chance to get on the booze. Next he would meet up with his army mates at a pub one of them now owned and opened up on Christmas day for Orphans Christmas as a place for people who had nowhere else to go. From there he would go to Lestrade's place where a few mates from the Yard and Molly would be taking a break from their families festivities to spend a bit of time celebrating at Greg's.

After all that would probably check back in on Harry to make sure she was tucked into bed and not in an alcoholic heap or at least a danger to herself before going home and crashing, perhaps literally, for a good night's sleep in his own bed, all the while trying to be social around Sherlock's, no doubt, incessant complaints he would receive via text.

That had been the plan.

Had being the operative word.

Less than ten minutes after forming his Christmas day strategy he had been abducted off the street, sadly before getting milk, and informed by a very smug Mycroft that he would be accompanying his little brother to the Holmes's festivities, no negotiations.

Not that John didn't try. He wasn't really opposed to spending Christmas with the Holmes's, though the thought terrified him, he was actually a little curious, but he didn't appreciate being ordered what to do. Especially by Mycroft.

But all the elder Holmes did was smile, in his vaguely reptilian way, and stop the car right outside 221B, signalling John's dismissal, much to his irritation at being ignored.

Now to head up to the comfort of his flat to be ignored by his equally annoying flatmate.

When had his life turned into this? Really.

Still John was no pushover; he had absolutely no intention of blindly following Mycroft's orders about this whole Christmas fiasco until he at least checked in with Sherlock.

His incredibly lazy git of a flatmate was lying sprawled out over the couch in his usual sweatpants and dressing gown combination, groaning about being bored and sentimental murderers not striking so close to Christmas.

He didn't even look at John before stating flatly "Mycroft invited you to Christmas."

"Well yes, but-" John started only to be cut off.

"The idiot didn't know you were already accompanying me to mummy's for this pointless holiday" Sherlock said matter-of-factly, standing up suddenly and stepped over the coffee table, ignoring John's confusion, and slumping annoyingly gracefully into his armchair, whipping out his phone at the same time, no doubt to send some childish text to his brother.

John shook his head "I'm sorry" he said not feeling sorry at all "but _when_ did I agree to go to your house with you for Christmas?"

Sherlock sighed dramatically and turned his best 'you're being deliberately obtuse' look, that John had got unnervingly used to, on him "I asked you yesterday after my phone call with mummy." He said as though every word of explanation was a favour to John.

"I left to visit Harry halfway through that phone call! I wasn't even here for Christ's sake!" John growled through his teeth.

"Did you?" Sherlock looked blankly up at him for a moment before shrugging noncommittally "Must have deleted it."

John rolled his eyes and moved to the kitchen to make himself a well-deserved cup of tea, pulling out two cups unconsciously, a habit that had proved to be quite painful during Sherlock's 'death' that he had broken then had to relearn upon his friend's return.

The cups had barely touched the surface of the bench top when Sherlock called out monotonously to him.

"You forgot the milk."

Given a choice, John wasn't sure which Holmes he'd like to throttle more.

* * *

**Stop trying to tell John what to do. He's ****_my_**** friend. – SH**

**Learn to share Sherlock. – MH**

**No. – SH**

**Oh brother dear, when will you stop acting like such a child? – MH**

**Maybe when you lose some weight. - SH**

* * *

**A/N: I got the idea for Orphan's Christmas through one of my good friends who was nice enough to invite me to her family's version of it last year when most of my family were split up for Christmas. So I guess I will dedicate this to Ashley, thanks heaps my wiatch.**

**Yeah I know, bit late for Christmas, but hey who says I do things the conventional way. Thanks for reading. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

John wasn't exactly sure, having never read the books or seen the movies besides a passing glance at the blurb of the first book and the occasional ad, but he was pretty sure that a Holmes' Christmas was what the Hunger Games was like.

Days after Mycroft's brief kidnapping John found himself walking side by side with Sherlock into what seemed like a completely mental circus. John had always imagined quiet, sophisticated affairs when it came to the Holmes's get-togethers, with cutting, half-veiled remarks at the stilted dinner table and cold exchanges punctuated by random fits of rage or boredom, likely thrown by Sherlock.

John should have known that a gathering of geniuses, especially Holmes's, would be just one massive pissing contest.

But nothing could have prepared him for this.

The cavernous hall seemed fully equipped for a mad multi-talented family; everything from a trapeze to an above-ground swimming pool, with two people in chains getting lowered into the water while a bored looking Holmes held a stopwatch, a shooting range with all manner of weapons was set up to dangerously overlap with a dancing station where a band of instruments clashed horribly with one another.

A man slightly older than himself stood at a table surrounded with chemicals while his young assistant occasionally stood in in order to stop mixing too volatile a reaction while a boy confidently strapped a pair of wings on his young companions back while the other boy looked nervously up at the trapeze ledge.

Not a second after they had entered the room, Sherlock was thrown a fencing lance and immediately engaged in combat with a young woman, not a day over twenty. If that wasn't enough there were copious amounts of smoke pouring out of what John assumed was the kitchen, leaving soot covered guests to stumble their way out, but also several deadly obstacle courses that young children and adults alike were manoeuvring, trying to outdo each other's times and ingenuity.

Mycroft could be seen combating small children, who came too close for the British Governments' comfort, with his trusty umbrella.

There were so many of them, more than John ever expected, and not one looked alike to another but there were certain little details of familiarity that seemed to link them all to one another.

It was all so confusing and disconcerting that John didn't get much farther than the first door out of the landing which contained the extremely dangerous games room. For some reason he couldn't explain a small table set up in the wall adjacent to the doorway attracted his attention. On further observation John realised that the table top was covered with almost a dozen pictures, all in intricate frames, of two people. Each picture had two separate inhabitants and it didn't take a genius for John to work out at least one of the two in each picture was a Holmes.

"First Holmes Christmas?" John whipped around to see a young man smiling in a friendly way at him.

"Uh yeah. I hadn't really expected…" John gestured around himself for lack of a better word.

The boy just smiled understandingly "this is my fourth, I'm practically a veteran. Let me guess, you're Sherlock's friend?" he asked, not at all in a typical Holmes I-know-I'm-right-because-I-say-so kind of way, but a genuine question, he'd almost forgotten what they were.

"Yeah. Though apparently Mycroft dictates my life just as much" John admitted with a sigh.

The boy pulled a face "tough break. Though you're not alone with the whole Mycroft thing, almost all the Holmes' in England has to put up with him."

"And the rest" John chuckled. "How could you tell? I mean about Sherlock" he clarified.

"Every now and then he looks over at you to make sure his mother hasn't found you yet, she has been gushing over the fact that her little Sherlock has finally found a friend that's not a junkie… or a murderer, or a murderous junkie… or a murderous junkie murderer. Though that's to be expected, Holmes's can attract some real scum, I practically had to peel a con-artist off of my Holmes when I met her." The younger man smiled indulgently over to Sherlock's fencing buddy before turning to the photos and sighing.

John glanced over then, noting each inhabitant ranged in age, race and gender but that the same sense of close friendship was present in them all. A familiar face piqued John's interest as he reached to pluck it from its place near the back.

"Is that Mycroft? Who's that he's standing with?" John couldn't help but ask.

The boy's face fell "Oh, that's Olivia; she was Mycroft's friend when they were kids right up until the beginning of uni."

"What happened?"

"She disappeared… or died. Nobody really knows what happened but she hasn't been seen since… and he was never the same since. That's when he got all over-protective-y."

"Why are all these other pictures here?" John asked running his eyes over the pictures on the back of the table which seemed to date back to the beginning of the first camera.

"This table is for all the Holmes's or their friends that have gone missing or died. One or both of the two in each of these pictures is no longer around. Sherlock's picture was here for a few years when… well we didn't have a picture of you two together but it seemed fitting to be on the duo's table, Mrs H had never been so happy to throw that picture out." The boy smiled genuinely before glancing once more at Sherlock and his fencing partner who had gotten into an argument before having to dive out of the way when one of the older Holmes' set a young woman's strange outfit on fire in order to gage if he had invented an anti-flammable material.

"What's your name?" John asked abruptly, realising he didn't know.

"I'm Owen-" he started to introduce himself only to be cut off by two small boys making their way to the trapeze one short and dark haired and the other taller and brunette, John recognised them belatedly from the wings the taller one still wore.

The shorter one spoke, catching John's eye in the process "-and aunty Carine has got a new one too, make a note of that Benjamin, I believe Sherlock brought his one this year, I thought it quite possible he'd never get a Benjamin. I believe he's ex-army, a doctor and listening in on our conversation with the hacker."

Owen beamed at the boys as they passed, neither man missing the tall boy, Benjamin, rolling his eyes fondly "you do know they can hear us Aljay. Hi" he tacked only shyly to John and Owen while guiding the other boy gently away from the knife juggling cousin and the, not well secured, shooting range.

"That was quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever seen" John said while watched the two boy leave "shouldn't we stop them though?" he turned back only to turned back and find Owen had been swept away by his Holmes but had managed to turn the tables and was now carrying her over his shoulder.

It was madness, absolute chaos; it was perfect for Sherlock who seemed to be in his element.

Nobody could have picked a more perfect family for Sherlock. No wonder the real world seemed so dull and unforgiving after this. John looked back at the pairs set up on the table, specifically at Mycroft and Olivia, they couldn't have been older than fifteen, Mycroft was actually smiling but it was directed towards the muscular brunette girl lounging against his side.

He wondered what she would have been like, knowing both Holmes's when they were just kids. Poor Mycroft.

"What do you think?" John wasn't entirely surprised that Sherlock had creepily snuck up behind him but it still made him jump nonetheless.

John looked around once more at the high wires, bomb-defusal courses, science equipment, art equipment, rock climbing walls, padded floors, escape stations and so much more with the other Holmes's and their exasperated companions and grinned "this is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen."

Sherlock smiled but it disappeared quickly when he handed John a gun and pushed him towards the shooting range "good now go and destroy my insufferably smug uncle and whatever you do stay away from my mother!"

John couldn't help but chuckle as he dove into the cloud of crazy, knowing that he was firmly, madly and happily a part of it.

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**A/N: So this took forever, sorry about the wait and I hope it turned out ok nonetheless :)  
****Happy Christmas in July everyone!**


End file.
